


Along Came A Fly

by rebelwriter6561



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Interdepartmental cooperation, Nonbinary Character, Office Shenanigans, working with your enemy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 08:34:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21473104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelwriter6561/pseuds/rebelwriter6561
Summary: Heaven needs help with a little problem, and they know just the demon to ask.
Kudos: 21





	Along Came A Fly

The commotion near the elevators was growing more distracting than the chaos of Hell usually was. Beelzebub sighed, rubbing their forehead to desperately will away the headache that was always there. Too minor to curse into oblivious, but enough to be a pain in the ass. A lingering ache that never went away. A perfect description of all of Hell.

"My lord?" Whoever was hovering nervously at the door looked far more frantic than any demon usually was in their presence. "There's a, um, at the elevator, there's, uh…"

"Spit it out," Beelzebub snapped.

"There's an Archangel in the elevator."

'Again?' Beelzebub wondered, but kept to themselves. "Tell them to piss off."

"But...it’s Michael!” Interesting. Not the one they expected, but still unwelcome. 

“And I don’t care. Tell her not to brighten our doorstep again.”

"But she could smite me," the demon whimpered. "Melt me by spitting on me!"

"Not my problem." Beelzebub dismissed them with a glare, turning back to the reports in front of them. Reports that were as unfathomable as they were two minutes ago. And now they'd lost their concentration.

The notification light on their phone was blinking. It was always blinking, a neverending distraction that never failed to get under their skin, but they couldn't figure out how to turn the feature off. They knew who it was anyway. They knew what the message was.

Fuck it. They weren't getting any work done that afternoon anyway.

Beelzebub got to their feet, following where the minor demon had run off. The usual denizens lurking around looked more nervous than usual, which was a shame. Clearly they weren't doing something right…wrong…if they couldn't instill fear like an Archangel. They could hear the whimpered excuses directed towards their foe, but didn't bother to listen. The demon scuttled off as soon as they saw them anyway.

Michael was spotless and radiant, as usual. Like a fucking joke that only those who had felt the business end of her sword would get. Beelzebub upped the glare as they slid to a stop in front of them. "What are you doing here?" they asked.

Michael looked…not nervous, the right hand was never nervous. Uneasy. "I thought Gabriel had informed you of the situation?"

Beelzebub thought back to the blinking light. "I would have thought that the assembled ranks of Heaven would be able to handle it," they said snidely. 

Michael's perfectly lined eyes narrowed. "You think we'd stoop to that level‒" 

"Don't let the door hit you on the way out." Beelzebub turned on their heel, helped by the slippery substance on the floor, and stalked away. They had better things to do than stand around and be insulted. Like stand around and insult other demons.

"Wait!" Michael really was desperate. Beelzebub thought about not returning, but it was always worth seeing an Archangel squirm. They settled for turning their head and raising an eyebrow. Michael met their eyes, and sighed. "Gabriel said...what you asked for, we'll provide."

Bingo. That's what they'd been waiting for. Beelzebub turned, fixing the demon to their left with a stare. "Hold my messages while I'm gone," they assigned. The demon looked understandably nervous ‒ most of their messages were very smelly and spiky.

"But...you're going with them?!" 

Beelzebub blinked coolly at them, then directed their attention to the one next to them. "You. Hold my messages, and escort that one‒" they jerked their head at the failure that had spoken up‒ "to the boiling lake and make them drink it."

That effectively silenced any other protests. Beelzebub brushed past Michael to the lift, pressing the button for the top floor as soon as they entered. Michael barely had time to squeeze in past the closing doors.

The lift began to rise, to the beautiful sound of canned Muzak. Beelzebub hoped it would stay that way, but Michael cleared her throat.

"Bit of irony, isn't it?" she said with faux pleasantness in her voice.

"What is?" They weren't in the mood to encourage her niceties.

"Having you, specifically, coming to deal with this…problem." The smile on her face was desperate for Beelzebub to pick up the joke. They had no such intention of doing so.

"Why's that?" they asked.

"Because you're‒" she gestured vaguely towards the top of their head ‒ rude "-and its…you know..." 

They did know, but they also didn't like the reminder that their head was perfectly at arm height on Michael, so they said nothing. Still staring at her like they were waiting for her to make her point. The smile turned desperate and she finally turned away. A small victory. 

Heaven as as blinding and white as they'd left it. The urge to vomit was strong. Regretfully, Beelzebub swallowed it down and stalked over to where Gabriel was waiting.

"Well," Michael piped up before either could say a word, "this has been lovely but I think I'll go… attend to some other business now."

Beelzebub side-eyed her as Gabriel nodded agreement. "As long as you have what we discussed‒" he tilted his head down towards them- "when we're done here."

Michael nodded smartly and pivoted away. Beelzebub felt the familiar rankling that came with watching others giving orders. 

"What's with her?" they asked. Gabriel shook his head.

"Michael really doesn't like this…situation."

"Are you shitting in my refrigerator?" Gabriel blinked, obviously trying to decipher that. "Archangel Michael, She Of The Flaming Sword Up The Arse ‒ she doesn't like this _situation_?"

"We know." Gabriel sounded so defeated. Good. "No one likes it. That's why we asked you to come."

At least he was willing to admit it. Beelzebub sighed, already thinking of what they would gain from this. Not much, in the long run, but who knew how long the run was going to be, these days?

“Let’s get this over with,” they finally demanded. Gabriel nodded solemnly and led the way into the gleaming hallways.

“I really didn’t think you’d agree to this,” Gabriel said conversationally. Beelzebub rolled their eyes up at him.

“I didn’t _agree_ to anything,” they snapped. “I am here for the favor that will be owed.”

“Naturally.” Beelzebub didn’t like that tone of voice. They especially didn't like the look on the angel's face. Like Gabriel really had expected them to show up. 

How fucking dare he.

Gabriel finally stopped at an intersection of hallways, nodding up at a corner. As if Beelzebub could possibly miss the single speck of out-of-place darkness on the wall.

Beelzebub bit their tongue, enjoying the taste, holding back the comment trying to crawl up their throat. The hallways were lined with angels, and they liked their corporation as it was. "Well?" they demanded. 

Gabriel frowned. "Well what?"

Widening their eyes at him like he was the biggest, thickest idiot to ever walk Heaven and Earth, Beelzebub gestured stiff-armed up at the intruder, then down to the floor, back and forth to make their point. "How am I supposed to get up there?" they asked. Damn him, literally, Gabriel was smiling, that smug prick. "Either get me a stool, or give me a boost." They hoped Gabriel would go for the latter. Their dignity meant nothing, Gabriel's was everything.

Gabriel nodded at some cherub, who scurried off. "Thought demons could climb up walls or something," he said conversationally.

"I'd rather chuck up green vomit." Theatrics weren't really their thing anyway ‒ any demon that had to resort to that was compensating. Beelzebub cast their glare towards the audience, finding who was nervous, who was hiding their emotions, and who had open contempt on their faces. They hoped their presence would lead to problems for Gabriel down the line. 

"How _exactly_ did it come to this?" they asked in the same tone of voice they used when a demon came up to them with a sheepish look and a stack of phone books with teeth marks on them.

Gabriel coughed. “We don’t know how they keep getting in,” he admitted. “I would normally suspect some sort of demonic intervention, but‒”

“Give us a little more credit.” Beelzebub eyed the speck. "Wouldn't put it past the traitor through," they said offhandedly. "This is very much his style."

Gabriel coughed again, like he was hiding a laugh. "We also tend to blame things like this on our traitor as well. Anything, really, that goes wrong with no explanation. " 

_Of course_, they thought to themselves. How many times had the boss bitched that everything below was still too similar to what was above, just darkly inverted? It would make sense that they even managed to invent the same jokes.

The senseless ball of light and fire returned with a neat white stepstool, which they placed in front of them. Smartly ascending the steps, Beelzebub reached out and poked at the large brown spider in the highest corner of Heaven, coercing it onto their fingers. Easy as that, and yet it was beyond the entire hierarchy of angels. They stepped down and gave Gabriel a gloating look.

Gabriel frowned. "I thought you would‒" he stopped with a disgusted noise, when, quick as a flash, Beelzebub popped the spider into their mouth.

It was a bit musty, but it was worth the look on the assembled faces. Gabriel in particular looked horrified, but also like he wanted to laugh. 

"Was that all?" Beelzebub asked, one leg hanging from their lips that they made no move to brush away. "Or do you have some termites tearing you down somewhere?"

"Egh…no," Gabriel answered. "No, you've done enough. Our greatest thanks to you‒" 

"Spare me," Beelzebub interjected. "You know what I want now."  
Gabriel nodded regretfully. "This way. Pack it up, folks," he told the crowd. "Back to whatever it was that you were doing."

Beelzebub waited until they were alone (but they never were, were they? Especially not here) before they asked. "Are you all so bored that everything stops to deal with one spider?"

Gabriel sighed, almost sounding exhausted. "Don't tell me your people don't react the same way when a bird gets in," he said meaningfully.

Right. He had a point. What else was there to do when the one thing they were working towards for _six thousand years_ fell apart because of a pair of idiots who managed to flub their way into extending the life of the world and all the things upon it? What were they supposed to do, without Heaven acting on their orders from on high, because on high was silent on the whole matter, and the boss below sulking up a storm? How long would it last, until they ran out of meaningless busy work and all found themselves facing nothing once again? What would they do then?

It wasn't like they could _all_ be Fired. Right?

Gabriel led them back to the lift, where Michael was waiting with a relieved grin. Next to her was an office chair, nothing fancy, not even pristine enough to belong in Heaven. But, to Beelzebub's eyes, they could see clearly that the handle to raise and lower the seat was actually working. Which was a marked improvement from any other chair in Hell.

Smirking, Beelzebub parked their ass on the cushioned seat, eyeing up the two Archangels. "It's been a distinct lack of pleasure doing business with you two," they said. "Now, if you'll excuse me‒"

They kicked off against the floor, propelling the chair back to the lift. Just before the doors closed, they caught Gabriel smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> This is no way based on any events that happened at my office. And if they were, I definitely wasn't the one squashing spiders and catching birds.
> 
> No spiders or birds were harmed in the writing of this fic.


End file.
